Now That Everyone's Freezing Their Eggs…Should You?

It's a question more and more single women are asking. Well, Lara Naaman did it—and she has surprising advice for anyone else considering this fertility-extending option.

Baby, it's cold inside.

Sometime around my thirty-seventh birthday, I was typing my age into the elliptical machine at the gym to get an accurate calorie burn. As I punched the 7 key, it hit me: I was two years past the magic age of 35, when fertility starts to plummet—and I still didn't have kids. Now mind you, I wasn't even sure I wanted children. But factor in the time it would take to get a date, get to know each other, get serious, carry the one…I might not have enough time to "think about it some more" before I became infertile.

I restarted the elliptical and resolved to do something, and six months later, I walked out of the recovery room at a fertility clinic where doctors had extracted 13 eggs from me, eight of which were deemed good enough to freeze. A year later, my eggs are still waiting for me, and I'm told they'll keep indefinitely.

As I went through the process, I was open and honest with anyone who would listen—and plenty of women were riveted. "Should I do it?" my best friend, Annie, 36, an editor in New York City, asked after a really bad blind date. "At a certain point I won't have the power to make the decision about having kids. My body will do it for me. Egg freezing can buy me time." When I blogged about the experience (titling one post "Eggs, No Sausage"), women chimed in about friends who had frozen their eggs. And in the ultimate sign of the times, last fall Kim Kardashian, 32, started the process of freezing hers—on air, of course.

Even the medical community is green-lighting the idea of preserving your fertility until you're ready: In October the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) stopped calling the process experimental, citing success rates comparable to those of in vitro fertilization. If we're counting—and some of us are—there have been 2,000 births worldwide as a result of the procedure, more than 1,000 in the past five years. Experts expect that number to skyrocket.

What Kim and I did is called "social egg freezing"; you're not preserving your eggs because of a medical condition like cancer that could cause infertility, but because you've been building a career and a fabulous life, and since some of the 300,000 eggs you have at puberty disappear every day, you want to save a few good ones just in case. The ASRM warns that marketing egg freezing to healthy young women could give them "false hope," leading them to put off having children, even though placing your eggs on ice doesn't guarantee a baby later.

But other experts disagree: "Women in their late twenties who are delaying childbirth for social or professional reasons should be aware of this," says Mark Surrey, M.D., medical director of the Southern California Reproductive Center in Beverly Hills. Until now, doctors have targeted women ages 32 to 38 for fertility-saving treatments. "The thinking was that women under 32 were likely to get married and have the chance to conceive before they'd need to use frozen eggs," says Anitha Nair, M.D., of Shady Grove Fertility Centers in Washington, D.C. The reality is that women now often delay marriage—and kids. Which goes against the biological truth that our eggs, fresh or frozen, are more viable when we're younger. So should you freeze your eggs? Ask yourself:

1. Can I shell out $10K?
You're looking at $6,500 to $15,000 for the procedure, plus an annual storage fee starting at $500. Most or all of it won't be covered by insurance, though some clinics offer payment plans. And remember: When you're ready to have a baby, you'll spend about $20,000-plus fertilizing and implanting the eggs.

2. Do I have a month to devote to this?
While the procedure itself is minimally invasive, the whole process takes about 30 days. You have to give yourself shots every day for two weeks. You have to go to the clinic daily for an ultrasound or blood work or both. And the meds will affect you: You'll cry at bad commercials.You'll get bloated.You cannot exercise. You can't do anything that elevates your heart rate. (Yes, that includes sex.)

3. Am I OK that I won't be guaranteed a baby?
If you're the type who bets only on a sure thing, you should know: This isn't one. New York University Fertility Center, one of the top egg-freezing clinics, reports success rates of slightly less than 50 percent: good, but not fail-safe.

4. How fertile am I?
No two women are exactly alike (and your odds of getting preggers may be better than you think), so experts suggest starting with a full fertility evaluation. "Then we can tell you whether treatment is urgent or not," says Dr. Surrey. A good doctor will take your entire fertility profile into account, not just your age.

5. How important is the baby-daddy?
If you're not holding out for The One, you may want to put your money on freezing embryos, in which your egg is fertilized—via a sperm bank—and then put on ice. (Embryos survive the process a bit better than eggs do.) Or if you're ready to be a mom now, consider artificial insemination. It's far less costly than egg freezing.

As for me, having eight eggs on hold has given me some peace of mind. But not entirely. Experts advise having 12 to 20 banked, but I'm not eager to get more shots or shell out more cash. Meantime, though, I do have a snappy answer when relatives ask, "Don't you want kids?"